Being one of the first X800GT to reach Singaporean shores, we were very interested to see what’s under the hood of this Powercolor X800GT. Especially since this card is a cut down, lower cost version of high end X800/X850 parts. We also faintly heard rumors that this card features a R430 or even a R480 core. This comes as no surprise, since it would mean that these cores are downgraded cores, due to either market requirements or defective pipelines.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the card in closer detail:

This is how the card looks like, without the large but slim heatsink / fan.

This Powercolor X800GT comes with a R480 core! Typically meant for high end X850Pro / X850XT cards, the R480 core made it’s way to this mid range card. Good news for overclockers!

Samsung 2ns GDDR3 memory is found on this card. At factory stock settings, it is clocked at 980MHz, while theoretically such memory can reach 1GHz without problems.

This is how the back of the card looks like, when it has the heatsink / fan mounted onto the card.

The mounting mechanism of the heatsink is simple yet very effective. Secured by 2 spring loaded screws and a cross bar, the contact between the heatsink and the core is kept perfect.

This is the heatsink itself. In order to prevent the crushing of the core caused by tilting of the heatsink, Powercolor included 4 thick rubber pads. These pads will prevent such tilting from occurring. However, RAMs are not cooled by the heatsink at all. It would be better if Powercolor had designed a heatsink to cater for that.

A close up look at the fan label. Although rated at 0.39A, the fan is barely audible at idle, and only produces a slight hum at full load.

Dual DVI outputs and a S-Video out for this card. Great for dual monitor LCD users!